


Stray Threads

by Skeren



Series: Tapestry of Souls [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 01:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14843367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: When Loki got his soulmark, it was something of a shock. It wasn't the biggest one he got that day, unfortunately.





	Stray Threads

Loki had lived most of his life knowing certain things about himself. He knew that he was an Aesir, one of the natives of Asgard. He knew he was the son of Frigga and Odin, second in line to the throne of the most powerful realm in the nine. He knew that he had a brother who while a few hundred years older would always still spend the time with him whether he wanted him to do so or not. He knew he was better at magic than hand to hand, and he knew that he was far more clever than his idiot brother on just about every level. He also knew that he was strange in that he’d never had one of the expected two soulmarks manifest, though, in some ways, that wasn’t so bad, as Thor hadn’t had his show up either, even well past their one-thousandth birthdays, respectively. 

Somehow, neither of them had really expected for _Loki_ to get a mark first. They definitely didn’t expect it to show up where it did, blue and icy across his belly. It wasn’t a place where Aesir got marks. It wasn’t a _color_ that matched with the Aesir, and Loki would later say with absolute certainty that he did _not_ freak out when the area immediately surrounding the new mark started to creep blue out over his skin in a way that didn’t feel terrible at all or like he was being frozen over from the inside. That was, after all, _absolutely not_ how it went. 

In reality, he shrieked like a little girl in his bath and almost immediately after had to fend off an overly concerned brother and incredibly worried mother. It was probably particularly telling that his _father_ had instantly disappeared as far as he could get away from him once word had reached him as to what was going on. Loki was _not_ impressed by the evasion, though he could admit, silently, that there was also a minuscule amount of gratitude that his male parent hadn’t stuck around to watch him make a fool of himself over the soul mark. It was already bad enough that he’d had to fend off both his brother and mother while naked without the entire household descending on him in such a mortifying place, truly. 

It was his mother that really saved the whole situation from disaster, removing his far too curious for comfort brother from the vicinity and shooing off the servants who were lurking in the hall to try and see what all the fuss was about. As it was, he’d practically lunged for a towel the moment he had the room to do so, throwing it around himself to try to salvage _something_ about this mess. As it was, it would doubtlessly take years and an intolerable amount of ribbing before he could live down his reaction, which had been little more than pure _surprise_. Nothing else. He was not _panicking_ in any way shape or form, even if his mother happened to be peering at him with incredibly concerned eyes.

No, he was entirely composed as he got dry enough to drag on a robe, holding it securely around his frame even as he pressed against his belly hard through the material and tried not to twitch at the soft heartbeat pulse of ice emanating from his center. He was utterly calm as he managed to speak in a voice that did _not_ shake while his mother steered him by his shoulders ahead of her to his room through a blessedly empty hall, and he _was just fine_ that the whole universe felt off-kilter, from his perceptions to his magic.

He was a prince of Asgard. He was an _Aesir_ , and the son of Frigga and Odin. 

It was hard to convince himself when his voice betrayed him the moment he attempted to speak, shaky and not at all filled with his normal confidence. “Mother, what does this _mean_?”

She was kind enough to ignore that his voice broke on the end of the question and instead pushed him to sit on his settee before settling beside him, never once wavering. Her expression of calm seemed so much more convincing than the one he was attempting to make himself, he was certain. “It means that your father is a bit of a fool my child, but it means nothing bad for you. Do you understand?”

The laugh that escaped him at that was sharp and humorless, and he pinned her with a level stare in turn as he practically hissed his response to her question. “No, I do not understand. The All-Father is _all knowing_ is he not? What is it then that he knows that I was clearly _unworthy_ to know about _myself_?”

“And that, my sweet child, is what makes your father a fool. It was not a matter of worth or lack, but a matter of... forgetting.” Her hand had reached out by this point, pressing on his shoulder to keep him seated even as his whole frame twitched with the need to _do_ something. Perhaps he wished to pace, and perhaps he wished to drag his father here so he could demand to know what reason there was for hiding things from him. It was rather hard to pick apart the source of the desire to move in his current turmoil.

Regardless of this, his mother was here, and she clearly intended to give him answers of some sort. After all, she would know just as well as his father, wouldn’t she? Beyond that, she’d always understood him far better, aware of what he was and was not yet ready for in his lessons, aware of when his emotions were in turmoil. Such had always been true. So this... “Mother, please _tell me_. How can _this_ -” He stalled out, thumping his hand against the hidden mark as he drew in a shaky breath. Then, he started over. “How can this be about _forgetting_?”

“There are two parts to this story my sweet. Will you have the patience to hear them both?” Her voice was soft, gentle, and something bridled at the handling even as the majority of him was thankful that she cared enough for caution. Rarely did she try to ease him into things, and that she felt the desire now was telling in its own way.

It didn’t stop the way he responded, however, his voice turning just a bit clipped in a manner that often exasperated his mother. “I am not my brother.” This time, her look was simply knowing. That look told him that his attempt to remain unshaken was not unseen, nor misunderstood. 

It also told him that she chose not to comment, for she clearly had something else entirely in mind as she started to speak, her voice falling into a soft, lilting tone that spoke of something remembered more often through ballad than by story. The way she turned her head and shifted her position spoke of solemn tragedy, however, not beauty or joy, and those indications were odd enough that Loki fell silent even as he speculated as to what possible relevance this tale would have to _now_. Rarely, in these halls, were the tragedies spoken of.

“Once, a very long time ago, before I ever was and the universe was new, there were a set of stones that were born from the very blood of creation. These stones were six and scattered far among the reaches of the all, unknown and quiet to those beings that had been born alongside them, for what they were was not the same as other things were, which was as it was meant to be.” Her lips quirked in a faint smile when she saw his recognition and she inclined her head, for the Infinity Gems were something that had been discussed before, in other lessons and other histories. They were something that much care had been taken in preserving the awareness _of_.

“Such as it was that things stayed for a truly long time. In that span, the nine realms formed, brilliant and shining for some, diverse and young in others, but all of them beautiful, valuable in their way. And so, with these lands came their peoples, but all was not peace between them, with some being so very much colder and sharper than others, the Aesir more than any.” When he startled, she just gave him a grim smile in turn, inclining her head. “Where the Vanir were the beautiful, the wise, the Aesir were sharp-edged weapons who brought peace through battle. Some, such as the Alfeneel, retaliated to this with equal sharpness, and others, such as the Jotun, banded with those who wanted a more peaceful way.”

This time, she did not look at him in his confusion, instead staring into the middle distance. “The Vanir and Jotun were, for a time, on the same side against the Aesir. They did not _want_ the rule of the Aesir, who had already ruined the Alfeneel and left their planet barren and empty. They felt that those of Asgard had _no right_ to impose their sword upon them and change their ways, let alone something so much worse. In the end, they lost, and the king of that time, your grandfather, took a bride from among the Jotun people. She was beautiful, small for her kind, and changed herself permanently to the form of a woman to conform to the ways of Aesir. I did not ever meet her, it’s true, but the stories that tell of her praise her so with cause, and her pictures are said to have not done her justice.”

She paused then, turning her head fully to look at him, clearly waiting to see if there was anything he had to say. He did, of course, the burning questions sharp in his mind. “If she- Is grandmother why...?” He fisted his fingers in the robe over the mark, mind spinning as he tried to understand. He _knew_ that the Jotun had been in enmity with those of Asgard since he was born, since well before it even, so there was a great deal that was yet clearly missing from this retelling. 

“Yes and no. It is not her blood that made you as you are, but it is she who is why your father brought you to me as an infant and saw nothing more than a child that he would keep for his own.” She shook her head, holding up a hand to stop him from asking anything more. “That is but the first part of several to explain, so shall I continue?”

He closed his mouth on further questions, letting out a shaky breath before inclining his head. She returned the gesture in kind, smile turning grim. “Bestla was beloved, but so also was she feared, for she had tamed Bor’s bloodlust into her control after their marriage, bringing a close to a bloody chapter of what came before. Some, such as the Vanir, rejoiced, finally willing to forge an alliance with the Aesir when they learned to value things beyond battle. Others, as the Jotun from whom she was borne, were wary of the peace that had come at cost of one of their treasured. The Jotun knew better between the two, for it was not to last.” 

She gave her head the slightest shake, solemn as she met his gaze. “She had three sons, did Bestla, of which your father is the youngest, and so, too, is he the only one to survive among them. Bestla, beautiful and precious, was killed on one of her trips to Midgard when your father was yet young, caught up by the people from whom she came, unknowing of her identity when they did not recognize her in her Aesir guise. It was an accident, truly, a simple misunderstanding that became something so much more terrible when conflict rose where none had been intended. Bor did not accept her death with grace, I regret to say. His rage was indiscriminate between those Midgardians who she had been visiting and the Jotun he felt should have protected her, leading to a horrific war of which the like had not been seen in the thousand years of his marriage. Your father came of age during that time, after his elder brothers fell in the fighting and Midgard had become a cold shell of the wonders that had once been present before.”

She spread her hands, taking one of his between both of hers as she brought them together, grounding him with touch. He must have looked shaken. This was a history he did not recall ever seeing. Never before had he found an account that Midgard had done anything but strive as it currently was, backwater and lesser as they never reached the potential of those with longer lives. This sounded remarkably as though that potential had been brutally trimmed when it was just reaching its first bloom. Worse, it sounded as those who called themselves protector were the ones to do it.

“Of course, you must understand something of this time, my child. It was dark and bloody, the history that the Aesir have. We of Asgard are diverse _now_ , but it was not so before your father. Your grandmother was unique in her reign as queen, and the tolerance is, I fear, still not always as it should be as you well know. Your father holds a great deal of bitterness to the Midgardians, even now while bearing the guilt of what his father helped cause to their people, even knowing that their histories do not know the source of the terrible winter they experienced that lasted _generations_ nearly three thousand years ago to their calendar.”

Squeezing his fingers, she finally returned to the story proper. “It was during this time that someone came to the Vanir, to the Queen who was my mother, and told her that this would not have been caused if the people, the many horribly wounded people, had but known what their souls had to show them. The gems, long lost but for the Aether which had been taken from the fallen Alfeneel and thought to be hidden, were all in the possession of this person. Their name is, to this day, unknown to me, and this story is one that I have very rarely told, save to you now, and once before to my beloved husband after we wed. I was a girl when this being came to my mother, and I have no doubt that this part of the tale is one I know only because I was much like you as a child, hiding away where I thought my parents did not see to observe things I really ought not.”

Shaking off the smile that briefly touched her lips, she moved a hand through the air, creating an illusion of the shadowed figure that had once stood before her mother, ghostly and not quite seeming _real_. “This being had no love for the sentients of the universe, not truly, and decided that there was a punishment due for those so reckless as to disregard their fellow creatures and do as we had done to Midgard. None were spared this lesson, for all, young and old, came to be marked by it. It was, I admit, impressive the way it was done, seamless and quiet while touching every corner of the universe in an instant.”

Her eyes closed and shook her head slightly, opening them a moment later as she turned her hand so that the soft green vines encircling her wrist was easily visible, the flowers adorning the vine were distinctive and beautiful in their red pattern. He knew his father had a similar mark curled around the back of his neck, unhidden by his attire on most days and a shade of red even where his mother had green. It was, he knew, the magic pledge that the universe had bestowed upon them to show that they belonged with one another.

Or perhaps, if he was understanding correctly, it was not, originally, the universe that bestowed such a thing.

“I see in your eyes that you understand. You always have been brilliant that way. Yes, the soulmarks were created by the being. The Vanir are bound at our wrists, always two, and always to those for whom we might in some way pledge ourselves. The Aesir with their torque and brand over their heart are another.” She moved the hand she was still holding of his to lightly tap against the one Loki still had curled in his robe, smile soft and wry. “As you know, the Jotun have but one, here, as you do. They will be your only, but unlike the Vanir, there is never to be a pledge needed from you, and unlike those of the Aesir they will not scald you with their presence.”

Reaching her hand back up, she waved away the image, leaving it to scatter like smoke in her fingers. “The being was never seen again, and while the Aether has never been found since that day, others among the gems cannot have the same said of them. They are scattered now, across the universe as they should be. It has ever been my guess that when the judgment was cast what was left of the one who made it ceased to be, leaving the stones to return to where they had been before being gathered. Regardless, I do not know for certain, and those like myself, like your father, who knew of a time before the marks at times... forget that they are not all alike, that they tell a story of the one who bears them, in their way.”

The silence that followed that statement was one filled with disbelief, stunned by the final point in his mother’s story. “Mother... Forgive me if this is not what you meant in telling me such an important secret, but do you mean to say that Father never expected I would know I was Jotun _because I didn’t have a soulmark_?”

The smile she gave him was almost _sheepish_ of all things, and he was too flabbergasted by the confirmation to say anything at all for a long moment. Nodding at him when he shook his head a little, she gave his captive hand another squeeze. “When he brought you home to me, he was so thrilled by having found you, but yet also outraged on behalf of you for having been left alone in the midst of battle. I do not know how or where he found you, I simply know that he did, and he gave you into my arms upon his last return from Jotunheim as he bestowed you with the name Loki. He was a fool gone over his new son _then_ , and yet since that day, he’s ever brushed aside my questioning of his idea to leave you in ignorance. I believe he truly thought it to not matter, for you are his son, as you are mine, and naught else is important.”

“Surely the fact I am so different from many here in Asgard was reason enough to tell me? And the stories of the monstrous Jotun-!” He jerked his other hand through the air, finally having released the robe as his emotions started to lean further from bewildered confusion and closer to anger. “Am I not of those very same monsters?”

“Loki, do not forget the _beginning_ of the story I shared with you. My fool husband’s mother was as you are, and you take strongly after her, for all that you do not share her blood. You are a politician I have taught well, and you mediate in the face of your brother’s overeager manner when you are out in the realms, do you not? You are no monster, child of mine, and you know as you ever should that the stories sung of battle are never so dramatic when they are of politics and grey spaces as they are with clear enemies who are to be slain and not understood.”

He pressed his lips together and breathed out roughly through his nose, working to keep his composure though he felt the quiver in his body that belied the attempt. Even knowing what he was, his father hadn’t once bothered to temper his tales. He could have shared most of what he’d learned this night long ago, but he hadn’t. He’d known _none_ of this. He’d thought he was blood of his father’s blood, not a foundling taken in by a soldier-king from a battlefield. It tore at him, making him wish to deny the things his mother was saying, but she had never _lied_ to him. At times, yes, she had refrained from telling him things, but she always _told_ him if there was something she would not tell him when he asked. She did not _lie_. “That does not change what has been done and said.”

“No, it does not, but it also changes nothing of what is true. You are my child. You are Loki Odinson as you have ever been since I first laid my eyes on you long ago. You are the child to whom I taught my magics, and with whom I have shared my stories and my values. You are _my_ Loki, regardless of who might have once birthed you and left you to be found. Is this clear to you? I do not doubt that when I go you will shortly after seek your father, but before I do I must insist that you heed the words I now say. I love you. This does not change by how you came to me, nor of what blood you are, and it never shall.”

He licked his lips, the place in him that felt betrayed by the silence curled and angry under his skin, but the cold of his new mark, not yet eased to quiet as these marks do, stilled the rage that wanted to rise, distracted him enough to focus on the tale of sorrow he had learned this night first rather than putting it aside in a temper far too much like that of his brother. “You are my mother and have always been my mother.” His voice was quiet, his words coming slow and careful. “That I am first of Jotunheim instead of Asgard does not change that I am Loki Odinson, second in line to the throne and younger sibling to an idiot of a brother. It does not change the love you have for me any more than it destroys the love for you that I have ever held in my heart.” His words hitched at that part, almost stumbling, but he continued regardless. “Today is the same as yesterday but for truths I now know that I did not before and the person of my future who revealed them to me by coming to exist.”

His mother reached out, brushing the backs of her fingers along his cheek before finally releasing the hand she’d held captive during their talk. “Exactly so. Now, I’ll leave you to dress so that you can go yell at your father for keeping secrets from you that didn’t need to be secrets.”

He blinked rapidly as he processed her words, a startled laugh leaving his chest as he watched her rise. “I did not think the day would come where you encouraged me to rage at Father.”

“This once it is perhaps for the best that someone other than myself expresses their displeasure of his doings.” She gave him a secretive smile then spun on her heel to head for the door, only pausing for a moment to give him a last searching glance before nodding and leaving his rooms, likely to hunt down his brother if the set of her shoulders had been any indication.

In spite of the moment of levity, Loki didn’t move immediately, instead staring at the door that had fallen closed in his mother’s wake as his hands drifted back to the blue pattern on his torso that he still hadn’t truly looked at. This person, whoever they were, had given him things that they would likely never understand the meaning of today. Now he was simply in the unfortunate position of having to find out what _species_ his chosen happened to be because they were very much not of Asgard. Not, of course, that that really did much by way of limiting his options, really. 

It would, he had no doubt, be a long search. Then again, he had a very long time in which to perform it, as he doubted his soulmate would be a mayfly who would dare die before they were found, of this he was certain. 

No other answer would be acceptable.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't _think_ that this will end up having multiple chapters, but if I have any more inspiration to touch on Loki (or even Thor) over the years in this universe during the time before they come to Earth, they'll go with this story. Because of this, it's very possible that further chapters on this, should they happen, will probably not actually be in any kind of proper timeline order. Thanks for reading!


End file.
